Bada qabristan in Mumbai to go online

Mumbai, Apr 15: The management of the Bada Qabristan in the metropolis, has embarked on an ambitous project of making all burial records online.

Spread over an area of approximately 8.5 acres, this Muslim burial ground, situated at Marine Line in South Mumbai, is considered as one of the oldest in the city. The Qabristan is said to be more than 180 years, and some 11,000 dead bodies can be buried at any given time.

''At present, we are working on the computerisation of all burial records of the past 30 years. However, we plan to put all available records on computer to facilitate the relatives' inquiries about a dead person,'' said Borad trustee Hanif Nalkhande, while talking to UNI.

Incessant queries about the bodies buried here, spurred the management to conceive the computerisation plan. ''Every day, a number of people visit us, seeking information about their dead relatives. The information is generally sought for either getting a death certificate from the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) or some other official purposes,'' Mr Nalkhande said.

The burial record contains full name of the deceased, full address, telephone number (if any), age, date of burial, name of the person who approached the authorities for burial, and also name of the person who dug up the grave.

Each grave has been assigned a unique ID, which is based on the details contained in the registeration form.

''Once the computerisation process is through, a person can search these records on the computer by any mode. This will help us getting away with the manual scanning of huge and bulky registers for these details,'' Mr Nalkhande said.

Also, once we get a domain name, all these details will be placed on the web, and a person even sitting in far off Chicago or down south in India can access these details and find out where exactly his near and dear once are buried, Nalkhande added.

UNI